The chief executive of BAA has dismissed the airlines’ case for compensation
over the snow disruption that brought Heathrow to a near-standstill before
Christmas.

Colin Matthews disclosed that the heavy snowfall had cost BAA “a very painful” £24m, including a £19m hit at Britain’s premier airport, which lost more than 500,000 passengers last month.

However, he believed an independent inquiry into BAA’s handling of the crisis would not expose the company to extra costs from carrier compensation claims. Both Virgin Atlantic, which lost £10m, and Lufthansa believe there is a case for financial redress.

“If the inquiry finds we were incompetent and irresponsible, I’m sure the airlines will seek to use that information,” Mr Matthews said. “But I don’t believe we were incompetent or irresponsible. We executed the snow plan, which the airlines knew about. I don’t think there is any basis for compensation.”

Denying BAA had run out of de-icer, Mr Matthews said the carriers had agreed to the airport operator’s snow plan. “It was explicit that beyond a certain point it would end up with our operations being suspended for an indeterminate period, which is what happened,” he said. “This was not a snow plan we cooked up by ourselves in a corner. We consulted with our airline customers.”

He said “what we got wrong was that the amount of snow was much more than we were prepared for”, with 16cm at some parts of Heathrow – almost three times the 6cm on which the plan was based.

Mr Matthews said the issue for the future was how prepared BAA’s airports should be for heavy snowfalls. He has sanctioned an immediate £10m extra spend on equipment, which “buys a lot of snow ploughs”.

BAA said passengers through its six airports fell by 10.9pc to 7.2m year-on-year in December, with Heathrow down 9.5pc to 4.81m – the fall at that airport entirely due to the snow. Volumes at Edinburgh and Southampton airports were down 18.4pc and 22pc respectively.

For the year, total passengers fell 2.8pc to 103.9m. However, without the snow, British Airways strikes and Icelandic volcanic disruption, which cost an estimated 3.6m passengers, BAA believes underlying traffic was up 0.6pc.

Passengers through Heathrow fell 0.2pc to 65.7m, but BAA believes there was underlying growth of 3.4pc.

Mr Matthews, who earned £944,000 last year, has waived this year’s bonus – though refuses to say how much it is. “I’m not being coy. I’ve just decided not to say anything about it,” he said.

He stressed: “We are really sorry for the thousands of disrupted holidays. I understand people’s anger.”

Regional carrier Flybe said the snow had cost it £6m after cancelling 1,980 flights.